In data released by a non-governmental organisation, the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) three-fourth of the new Delhi MLAs are millionaires, one-third have not studied beyond senior secondary and more than half have criminal cases against them.
According to ADR, 45 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators of the 62, and seven of the eight Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs had declared more than Rs 1 crore assets while filing their nomination papers.
There were 44 millionaire MLAs in 2015. The average of assets per MLA in the new Delhi Assembly is Rs 14.29 crore, which is more than double the average of Rs 6.29 crore in 2015.
Of the AAP legislators, the average assets per MLA are Rs 14.96 crore and in the case of the BJP, it’s Rs 9.10 crore. The richest AAP legislators as per their election affidavit are Dharampal Lakra (Mundka), followed by Promila Tokas (R.K. Puram) and Raaj Kumar Anand (Patel Nagar).
Rakhi Birla (Mangolpuri) is the poorest AAP legislator with Rs 76,000 assets, followed by Sanjeev Jha (Burari) at Rs 10 lakh and Som Dutt (Sadar Bazar) at Rs 11 lakh.
There has been a sharp jump in the number of MLAs with registered criminal cases in view of which the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered all the political parties to upload on their websites details of pending criminal cases against candidates contesting elections. In 2020, 43 MLAs declared criminal cases against them while in 2015, 24 MLAs had criminal cases.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said the parties must submit a report of compliance to the Election Commission within 74 hours of selecting such candidates, failing which the poll panel must inform the apex court.
The number of MLAs with serious criminal cases, which included rape, attempt to murder and crimes against women, is 37. In terms of education, 23 MLAs are between 8th pass and 12th pass, 42 graduates and above, and five diploma holders.
While 39 MLAs are aged between 25 years and 50 years, 31 are in the 51-80 years, age group. Of the 70 MLAs, eight are women against six in 2015. The Delhi Election Watch and the ADR analysed the affidavits of all 70 newly-elected MLAs.